Thunder cracks directly overhead, so loud it rattles my teeth. I flinch. He doesn't. The lightning is getting closer now, striking the quad's stone pavement in places, leaving scorch marks that smoke in the rain that's finally starting to fall.
And then I see Dahlia.
The Tumult girl from my combat class, the one who always looks confused—she's stumbled out of a doorway on the far side of the quad, probably disoriented by the probability shifts that happen around chaos mages during storms. She's standing in the open, looking around with wide eyes, and she doesn't see the lightning building directly above her.
But I see it. I feel it—that electric hum, that building charge, the way the air goes sharp and bright a split second before a strike.
I don't think. I run.
The lightning hits me instead of her.
Or—no. Not hits. That's not the right word for what happens.
I throw myself between Dahlia and the sky, hands up, the same instinct that saved me in the Mors demonstration, and the lightningcomes to me. Reaches for me. Pours into me like I'm a lightning rod, like I was made for exactly this purpose.
Heat. Blazing, searing, electric heat that's nothing like the cold of shadow magic—thisburns, this screams through my nervesand sets every cell on fire. I feel it racing through my blood, my bones, my brain, and for a moment I can't see, can't think, can't do anything but hold on and try not to fly apart.
It wants out. The lightning wants to escape, to arc from my fingertips and strike whatever's nearest, and I can feel the shadow magic in my chest rising to meet it—cold and hot, death and storm, two forces that should destroy each other but instead are tangling together, finding balance, making space.
I hold it. I don't know how. I just—refuse to let go.
The world comes back slowly. The rain on my face. The stone beneath my feet. Dahlia's terrified voice saying "oh god oh god oh god" somewhere behind me. The smell of ozone and burnt hair and something that might be my own skin.
I open my eyes. Lightning is still crackling across my hands, bright and white-hot, but it'sminenow. I can feel it humming under my skin alongside the shadow, two new organs I never asked for, two types of magic that have taken up residence in my chest without permission.
And Atlas is running toward me.
He grabs my wrist before I can react.
His grip is bruising, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, and his face is inches from mine—rain-soaked, wild-eyed, utterly furious. Thunder rolls overhead, responding to his rage, and I feel the storm surge around us like a living thing.
"What thefuckare you?"
His voice is barely human. More growl than words. I can feel his magic reaching for me, trying to pull the lightning back, and itwon't come—it's mine now, settled into my bones, and his power just slides off me like water.
"I don't know." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I don't know what I am."
"You took it. My lightning. You just—" He's shaking. I can feel it through his grip, this fine tremor running through him that might be rage or fear or something else entirely. "That's not possible. That's not fuckingpossible."
"And yet."
His eyes search my face. Up close, they're lighter than I realized—pale blue with flecks of grey, like a sky before a storm. Rain is running down his cheeks, plastering his white-blond hair to his forehead, and his chest is heaving like he's been running for miles.
He looks terrified. He looks furious. He looks, for just a moment, like a boy instead of a storm.
Then his grip tightens, and the rage wins.
"Stay away from me," he snarls. "Stay away from Tempest, stay away from my people, stay the fuck away from—"
"Probably not the best place for this conversation."
Felix's voice cuts through the rain, light and amused, like he's commenting on the weather rather than interrupting whatever this is. He's standing a few feet away, cards in hand, apparently unbothered by the storm still raging around us.
"There are about forty students watching from various windows," he continues, nodding toward the buildings surrounding the quad. "Plus Professor Parker, who I believe is taking notes. If you're going to have an emotional breakdown, Atlas, you might want to do it somewhere more private."
Atlas releases my wrist like I've burned him. Steps back. The storm is already dying—clouds thinning, lightning fading, thunder retreating into distant rumbles.
"This isn't over," he says to me. Low. Dangerous.
